Horror Movie Review: Get Out (2017)

“I don’t know if you noticed. White people love making people sex slaves and shit.”

Get Out is a 2017 American comedy horror film written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele, in his directorial debut.

We open with a black man, Andre Hayworth, walking down a suburban street late at night. A car slowly begins to follow him while playing ominous music. Andre decides to walk in the opposite direction and get out of there, but a figure appears from the car. Andre’s abducted and bundled into the car.

Months later, black photographer Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) take a weekend trip. They’re off to meet Rose’s parents, neurosurgeon Dean (Bradley Whitford) and psychiatrist/hypnotherapist Missy (Catherine Keener), and her brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones). Chris is disturbed by what he perceives as strange behavior from the black groundskeeper and housekeeper, Walter and Georgina.

Later that night, Chris is invited by Missy to talk about his mother. He reveals she died in a hit and run when he was eleven. As they talk, Missy hypnotizes Chris into a paralytic state, sending his consciousness into a void that Missy calls “the sunken place”. Chris wakes up in bed the next morning. He initially believes that the encounter was just a nightmare. But later realizes that Missy has hypnotized him to quit smoking.

Guests arrive for the Armitages’ annual get-together, where various older white couples take an uncanny interest in Chris. He meets Logan King, a black guest whose bizarre demeanor and familiarity unsettles him. He calls his best friend, TSA Officer Rodney “Rod” Williams. Chris tells him about his hypnosis and the unusual behavior of the black people in the area.

He later tries to stealthily take a picture of Logan with his phone, but its camera flash goes off. This causes Logan to freeze, suffer a nosebleed, and then hysterically yell at Chris to “Get out!”. Dean claims that Logan has suffered an epileptic seizure, but Chris is not convinced. Chris and Rose leave the party to go on a walk. An unsettled Chris convinces Rose to leave with him that night. While they are away, Dean holds a mysterious auction, a picture of Chris at his side, with Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer, placing the winning bid.

While packing to leave, Chris sends the picture of Logan to Rod, who recognizes Logan as Andre Hayworth. He’s a past mutual acquaintance of theirs. Alarmed, Chris tells Rose that they need to leave immediately. As he attempts to do so, the whole family—Rose included—blocks him. Chris tries to escape but is incapacitated by Missy’s hypnosis. Rod becomes concerned when Chris does not return home or answer his calls. He discovers that Andre Hayworth went missing months ago; he tries to get help from the police but is not taken seriously.

Will Chris manage to get away? What can Rod do to convince the police?

Get Out is one of my favourite horror films to come out this year. Not only is it poignant and insightful, but it’s also entertaining and humorous at times. It was definitely refreshing to see a black character last longer than 10 seconds in a horror movie and actually be a real character with depth.  Along with being terrifying, Get out is basically a satire on casual and institutional racism. An entire scene in the movie has Chris subjected to various casually racist comments, but being used to it he shrugs it off. It leaves me thinking if there was any way of him predicting what was going to happen based on what was said. But that’s just impossible. The fact is no one would bat an eyelid in real life if such questions were asked.

This movie is extremely clever and I feel could easily become a classic. The twists it has are predictable but done in an original way. Delving into a psychological mind-fuck, this movie expands to more than just two genres but several. Mixing many genres together is no small feat and it works perfectly. Lastly, the ending was (sadly) unusual and what you expect to happen in that moment says it all.

Overall, I cannot praise this film enough. Well shot and well done in every department. Don’t miss out on one of the most important and relevant films of the year.